


waking dream

by wreckageofstars



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Canon-adjacent, Character Study, Drama, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 11:53:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18031250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckageofstars/pseuds/wreckageofstars
Summary: [They say the past is a foreign country, but she knows better. The past is only what's behind your eyes when you close them.That's rather the trouble, of course.]





	waking dream

_waking dream_

 ---

She'd told Ace once – or had it been Benny? She'd been so full of secrets then that reaching back in memory is like hitting a wall of fog, a dreary sludge full of hidden things and moving parts – that Time Lords didn't have to sleep.

It had been a lie, of course. Rule number one, right from the start, even though she's far from the chess master she used to think she needed to be. Her lies have gotten less complicated over the years. They have to be. Sometimes she needs to believe in them too.

Right now, though, she's having some growing doubts about the efficacy of this particular fiction, mostly because there's a pair of big, brown, impossible eyes staring at her where there definitely shouldn't be.

“Ryan Sinclair,” she says, affecting pained disapproval and wrenching her aching, tired eyes away from the past. “What have I said about touching things?”

Ryan shifts guiltily, hands scraping across the gravel floor of the windowless room they've unceremoniously fallen into together. “Not to?” He looks genuinely sorry, and she feels a bit bad for getting after him. “Wasn't really thinkin', sorry. Only it was a big red button, and I just – ”

Oh, it always is. Honestly, she can't even blame him.

“It's alright,” she reassures, trying for cheery. “Pressed a big red button a time or two in my life as well. In fact, if you hadn't pressed it first, I probably would've done anyway.” She frowns. “You know, we really shouldn't split up together, you and I. Too similar.”

“Heard that before,” a phantom voice remarks, frank.

“You're right,” Ryan agrees, dismayed, leaning his head back against the concrete wall. “Yaz never lets me press any buttons.” His eyebrows raise in consideration. “She never lets _you_ press any buttons either.”

“Pro-button and anti-button factions,” she mutters, trying to ignore what she knows isn't there. “We'll have to distribute accordingly next time, to avoid things like this happening again.” Her gaze drifts mournfully to the ceiling, to the seam of the trap door they'd fallen through, too far to reach, too – _concrete_ to sonic. “It's alright. I'm sure they'll come for us. Bound to notice we're missing eventually.”

“If they don't,” Clara says, legs crossed amicably across from them, voice contemplative, “who do you think will die faster? I don't suppose Mr. Button-Presser will last all that long, but between you and me, I think I might finally be able to give you a run for your money.” The Doctor keeps her gaze fixed on the trap door, breath still, trapped, in her lungs. “Of course, I am technically dead. Between one heartbeat and the next.” Her voice turns sweetly inquisitive. “Are you gonna do a better job with this lot?”

The Doctor holds her gritty eyes on the ceiling and folds her shaking hands tightly in her lap.

It's only the start, of course.

\---

It's some sort of – fault, she thinks at first. A regeneration gone bad. Her brain finally got rewired wrong, and instead of an extra hand or an extra personality, she's just got – ghosts. Following her everywhere. Commentating, and that's probably the worst bit, because not all of it is sharp, not all of it is cruel.

“Are you really going to wear that?” A blonde wearing an impressive amount of ruffles gazes at her in prim disapproval from behind her shoulder, wavering in the wardrobe mirror. The ruffles shift and shudder, and just for a moment she sees ceremonial robes instead, emblazoned with the seal of Rassilon, golden and gleaming, silky blonde hair and a pale, perfect face, flaking away into ash. Burning. “It's not even a different outfit, you've just changed the shirt.”

She scrunches her face at that, because this outfit is perfect. Good boots for running, trousers with lots of pockets, suspenders – because they're cool. She turns to say so, a retort on the tip of her tongue – but there's no one there, of course.

She fixes an ostentatious hat to her head, just to try, but it really doesn't suit her. Engulfs her head entirely. She stares morosely at her own reflection for a minute, half-swallowed by ruffles. Ridiculous. She swallows back a yawn and throws the hat on a chair. Leaves it and her reflection behind, and goes to find her friends.

Paris, she thinks, without thinking too hard about it. She'll take them to Paris, next.

\---

It's not really a fault though, is the thing. Or it is, but it's not one that can't be fixed. Probably. It's not a problem inherent to her, at least. Or rather, it _is_ , but it's also not.

In amongst the drama of Tim Shaw, and Grace's death, and the race for the TARDIS, and then all the trouble she'd had getting everyone back to Sheffield, and then, of course, the spiders, it takes her a while to even notice. It's all been so exciting, every minute, every second since she'd woken up new. The universe is filled with wonder and kindness and laughter and she wants to touch it all, see it all, taste it all like she hasn't for years and years. She reaches for joy with ease now and _finds it_.

It's always been there, of course. She's been like this before. And the heart of her, the wanderer, the helper, that ceaseless tide of aching wonder, never changes. But there's something about this new head of hers, this new body, full of youth, full of hope, that makes everything that came before her very easy to forget. Or at least – very easy not to think about too much.

At least at first. That's rather the trouble, of course.

The problem is very simple: they've all been moving so fast, so quick, so fun, jumping to one adventure from the next, that it takes a very pointed attempt on the TARDIS' part to all but trip her into unconsciousness for her to finally clock (hah _, clock_ ) the fact that she hasn't so much as rested her eyes once since she'd jolted awake on Grace's sofa.

“You could've tried something a bit more subtle,” she complains, ears ringing as she clambers to her feet, glaring up at the central console screens, blinking serenely with several scientific articles on the perils of sleep deprivation. “No need to get passive aggressive about it.”

In response, the lights dim and a striped blanket spits out at her from one of the round things, catching her around the head. She swipes it off her face, hair crackling with static, face scrunched.

“Is that what the round things are for?” she demands. “Do you store _blankets_ in there?”

The lights dim even further.

“I don't need to be reminded to nap,” she protests. “I'm not a child!”

Though to be fair, she thinks, swallowing back a yawn, she had sort of – forgotten. Too busy running, too busy exploring.

 _Pale silver trees calm still lake barn in the desert_ fills the back of her mind.

“Fine,” she mutters, “you _nag_ ,” and clambers down into the heart of the console, where it all smells a bit like time and ozone and engine oil, where it's warm and familiar. She tucks herself into the base of the console with a sigh, throws the blanket from nowhere over her legs –

– and jolts awake, a phantom sun baking her face, feeling loss like an open wound, rags smothering her breaths, digging around in the back of her head, sharp, unwelcome. She'd left Susan with only one shoe, she remembers suddenly, randomly, for the first time in what feels like centuries, and the guilt is suffocating.

Twenty-two minutes, four seconds, point seven nano-seconds.

“Right,” she breathes thinly, throwing the blanket off her legs. “Okay.” Nightmares. New. Odd. Good old grouchy-face had slept like a baby, but for the rare, traumatizing exception. The odd bit of childhood paranoia. And _now_ she's also imagining a hand grasping hold of her ankle, thanks brain, bang-up job. “Well,” she mutters, heart pounding. Grabbing hold of the blanket, thrown aside, and tucking her legs safely back underneath it. “We gave it the old college try.”

They say the past is a foreign country, but she knows better. The past is only what's behind your eyes when you close them.

She'll just have to keep hers open, then.

\---

The problem, though, is that the past seems to have acquired a visa for the front of her eyes when they're open as well. Donna waxes sharp and critical about her piloting, drowning out Graham's protests. Mel leans over and watches judgementally as she dumps seven sugar cubes in her tea. Sarah Jane guards the door, young and guileless, her gaze wide and wet and smart and sad.

“Are you going to leave them behind, too?” she asks, brow drawn in concern, vanishing from the corner of her eye when she pushes through to the outside, heart pounding.

 _They're never far from me_. She never expected to mean that quite so literally.

She can get by on piddly little naps, sort of. Twenty minutes here, twenty minutes there, before she wakes up, heart in her throat, fear and guilt lodged in like stones. It staves off the ghosts, but never for long. The longer she stays awake, the more they become a fixture. A part of the landscape. They fill up the space left when she drops her friends off in Sheffield between adventures, drift between her conscious and subconscious like floating spectres, bits of her past flung forward with abandon, unearthed violently from the back of her brain where she'd used to let them all rest.

The Stenza technology, she has half a thought, once, screwdriver clenched between her teeth as she rewires a faulty console circuit, barely paying attention. Those stupid, sentient rags. They'd rooted around in her brain while it was still rebooting. Maybe all this is their fault. Maybe it's nothing to do with her at all.

“Self-reflection's never really been your bit, has it?” Bill remarks sunnily, propped up against the console beside her, visible out of the corner of her eye. “Have you considered asking for a bit of outside advice? Only I worry, you know, now that Nardole's not here to bully you into making good decisions.”

She turns from the console with a sigh, takes the screwdriver out of her mouth, nose wrinkling at the metal aftertaste. Bill gazes back at her calmly, leaned against the console, the gentle whirring of the central rotor visible through the gaping hole in her chest.

“Do you miss us?” she asks, bathed in golden warmth. “Are you just lonely? Do you feel bad about leaving us behind? Or do you feel bad about leaving your new mates in the dark?” She smiles gently. “You can take your own advice without rewriting your past, you know. Running fast doesn't have to mean running away.”

She blinks and Bill disappears. The faulty circuit sparks with a violent crack. Ill-repaired.

Graham wanders in, a cup of tea in hand, whistling absently. He doesn't immediately make allusions to his imminent demise at her hand, bluntly state some inconvenient truths, or offer up any cryptic advice, and so she figures he's probably real.

“Where to next, Doc?” he asks.

Outside advice. She could tell them, probably. But wouldn't that crack the mirror, just a little bit? They have to trust her, believe in her, or it all falls apart.

(Or she falls apart. Whichever comes first.)

“Well. About that.” She surveys the mess she's made of the console. Traps a yawn between the back of her teeth. “How d'you fancy a trip to a junkyard?”

\---

They can't see her fall. So, she falls where they can't see.

She really is fine, probably. She's more durable than they are, more resilient, more ephemeral, she walks in eternity –

– she's sliding slowly down a sterile wall in a private ward, breaths sharp in her throat, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. Everyone else is sleeping, even Mabli. Their journey to Resus One so far has been painfully, distressingly slow, in the aftermath of disaster, and everyone else is encumbered by the necessity of sleep.

She's not so burdened. Although she is starting to debate the merits of a new spleen, or at least some paracetamol. She'll peruse the supply stocks later, maybe. There must be some way of acquiring it without asking for it. Some way of avoiding Mabli's scrutiny until she can duck away back to the TARDIS, back to _home_ , and make everything right again.

In the meantime, she drifts, not quite awake, not quite asleep. Opens her eyes only once to Missy jabbing her in the side with two pointed fingers, pain hot-white-sharp-wrong, and her strangled gasp brings a misty-eyed smile to Missy's face, crouched down in front of her, uncomfortably close.

“Oh, lovely,” she drawls, the blue of her eyes sharp and bright, delighted. “Now you're crackers, too.” She draws closer, pressing harder until sharp sparks of white begin to drown out the edge of her vision. “Are you going to tell your little insects, or shall I?”

“Stop,” she pleads, breaths harsh in her throat, even though she knows – she knows. Missy isn't really there. She's begging to thin air. “Please, stop.”

The fingers only dig in sharper. Tears fill her eyes.

“There, there. It only hurts,” Missy whispers, breath hot on her face, trailing a gentle hand down the curve of her cheek, “because I love you the most.”

\---

When she finally gets them all back to Seffilun 7, the TARDIS is furious.

“Oh no, don't yell at me,” she mutters, dismayed, _worry disapproval the waves riding up sharply against a cragged shore_ settling up against the back of her mind. She smushes her face against a cool wall, frowning. “I'm havin' fun! I'm just – runnin' around, exploring again. Wandering. 'S _nice_. Things like this are bound to happen sometimes.”

Another sharp prod.

“Not you too. Runnin' _around_ , not runnin' away,” she protests. “Don't be cheeky.”

She feels eyes on the back of her head, but she won't turn around.

After all.

“What have I got to run from anymore?” she whispers.

\---

“Serenity Palms!” She flourishes her hands with aplomb towards the door, biting back a wince, gauging their excitement cautiously. She _thinks_ she's done this right. “The best resort planet in this entire galaxy. It's got an anti-grav waterslide, twenty-seven pools, a full service spa, and a four point five TripAdvisor rating.”

“This is an apology for getting us exploded,” Yaz says shrewdly, immediately.

“Absolutely correct,” she confirms, digging her spine into the console for stability. “Is it working?”

Ryan's already halfway to the doors, swim trunks in hand. She'd told them all to prepare for water and sun. “Last one to the waterslides buys the ice cream!”

“He always assumes there's gonna be ice cream,” Graham mutters fondly, ambling after him out the doors, a sun visor wrapped around his head. “Thanks, Doc, this sounds lovely.”

“Very welcome,” she says, digging through her pockets for appropriate currency. She dumps a handful of what she thinks is probably close enough to the right kind into Yaz's hands, frowning. “And this is a _resort_. Of course there's ice cream.”

Yaz's brow crinkles at the money, but she folds it carefully into the pocket of her shorts for safe-keeping.

“Are you coming?” she asks.

Trick question. That's what it feels like, anyway.

“After all the trouble we've gone to get these spare parts, it would be a shame not to put them to good use,” she says, evading.

“It's just – you don't really look – ” Yaz considers, fumbling for diplomacy and failing. A faint smile tugs at the Doctor's lips. “Well. You don't look well. I know repairs are important, but don't you have a place to sleep, here? A place you could rest?”

“Probably.” Definitely. Lately, it's been behind almost every door she opens. “Haven't found it yet. TARDIS likes to keep me on my toes.”

The old girl groans at that, an affronted, deeply offended creak. Yaz raises her eyebrows uncertainly, glancing up, in search of confirmation that she'll never get. The shades she's wearing tip down her nose as she lowers her head and she pushes them back up, flustered. The Doctor swallows back a laugh, not wanting to offend her. Delighting in the unkemptness of the act. Yaz is always so put-together, so polished, so alert. She deserves to be relaxed, deserves to be a bit less vigilant for once.

“I like this one, Professor.” A voice from the corner, where a blonde in a bomber jacket leans casually, arms crossed, one foot resting on a boom-box that isn't there. “Never thought I'd like a fed.”

She blinks, harshly. When she looks again, Ace is gone.

Yaz frowns and glances back at the corner, shades slipping again. She slaps them back up to the crown of her head, frown deepening with irritation.

“Right, but – ” The empty corner doesn't ease her suspicion. “Where do you sleep, then?”

Truth or fiction? Rule number one rears its head, but they don't know it yet, is the thing, her friends. And she doesn't like lying to them. Omission tastes better on her tongue, sweeter than fiction, less bitter than the truth.

“Oh, here and there. Lots of universe to see, I don't need to waste my time with it too much, honestly. Humans and your eight hours, that's just decadent, you know. Think of all the things you could do in eight hours.”

“Think of all the trouble you could get into, you mean.”

“Is that not what I said?”

Yaz only tilts her head down at her, steady gaze impressively hard to penetrate. But the twist to her mouth is kind.

“You stood in front of us,” she says, out of nowhere. “When that thing blew up, you pushed us behind you.”

“I suppose so.” The Doctor shifts as surreptitiously as possible. “I have a duty of care, you know. Think of it as your traveler's insurance.”

Oh, but those big, brown eyes are terrible. There's no hint of sharpness to them, no guile. Calculation, sometimes, but even that's sincere. She's got a bad track record with eyes like that.

“Well, I'm glad you're alright,” Yaz says finally, softly. “That's all. Do you want to come and sit by the pool, at least?”

Talking around what she'd really like to say, the Doctor can tell. There are questions lurking behind her eyes. Concern. But she's careful, her Yaz. Naturally cautious. Still a bit too inclined to do exactly what she's told, but there's potential there. She's kind, wonderfully kind, and that's the most important thing.

“I suppose I could be convinced. Love a good pool. Love a good waterslide!” Her breath hitches as she peels herself away from the console, feet less steady than she'd care to admit. “I was a test rider for the very first one.”

“You know, I sort of think – maybe you shouldn't.” Yaz's face is caught between hesitancy and authority, and it almost makes her laugh again. “Actually, I really think you shouldn't. Why didn't you let them fix you up at Resus One?”

Because the less humans in any century know about Time Lord biology, the better, to be frank. But that's an answer that would only beg more questions, and she's not in the mood.

“Don't like initials, don't like hospitals. Resort pools are much better,” she says, straightening as best she can, biting her tongue at the sharp band of white that crosses her vision. Actually, that's a bit of a lie too. Resorts are insufferably dull places, up there with cruise ships and dinner theatre, but there's that new sort of voice in the back of her head telling her that saying so out loud might be kind of rude. She doesn't always listen to it, but her friends are going to have fun here – she won't ruin that. Not for any reason. “And we had to get back to the TARDIS.”

“Right,” Yaz says, clearly unconvinced, opening the TARDIS doors with a creak, yellow sunlight spilling in. But she's willing to let it all go today, it seems like. “Well – I think Graham's brought sun cream, if you like.”

Sun cream. How wonderfully human. She smiles faintly, a step away from cheerful brightness, at Yaz's heel.

“You really like this one, too, Professor.” From behind her ear. A deeper voice, now. Older. She knows if she turned to look, she'd see Ace again, suited up, metallic shades catching sharp in the light. Weapons strapped to her hip. “You really liked me, once. But I think near the end I only scared you to pieces. Are you gonna turn her into something that terrifies you as well?”

 _There was never a moment I didn't like you_ , she doesn't say, the words sitting sour on her tongue. You don't talk to ghosts. That's a rule, probably. If it's not, it should be.

She follows Yaz out the door, into the light. Leaves Ace in the dimness, in the shadows where she'd liked to lurk, near the end. And Serenity Palms is warm and artificial and so boring that normally she'd want to stab her own eyes out, but instead she lets Yaz lead her to a pool chair. She smears sun cream on her nose and lets an ice cream melt in her hand, listens to Graham complain about the sand between his toes and watches Ryan and Yaz have a splash fight, safe and alive and perfectly whole. She dozes, in the waning light, until the phantom smell of decay and the buzz of this planet's evening insects send her choking towards wakefulness.

Her hand is sticky with melted chocolate and her nose is burnt. The evening heat should be pleasant, but the sweat along her forehead is cold.

“Alright, Doc?” Graham peers at her from his own chair, leveraging himself upright. She's startled him out of his own nap, she thinks ruefully. Though maybe it's for the best – the deck and the pool are all but deserted, and the sun is dipping quietly behind the resort towers. “Yaz and Ryan went to the water slides. Fancy a bit of dinner? We could grab them on the way.”

Boring, boring, boring, she's already itching to be somewhere else, to see something else, something new, but –

“Sounds brilliant,” she says, fixing a smile to her face, and Graham nods, relieved. Unsettled, by the look of his eyes, but he doesn't say anything.

This is part of the adventure, she reminds herself as she stands to follow him. For them, it has to be. And for them, she'd do anything. Absorb the impact of an explosion. Even sit through a dinner theatre.

Besides, she did sort of get them blown up. All of this is part of the apology. All of this is part of the adventure. All of this is part of the fun.

She claps her sticky palms together around the buzz of a fly.

\---

“Grandfather,” Susan says, so real she could reach out and touch. “How long are you going to do this to yourself?”

\---

She drops them all off after the Punjab, sets herself spinning into the vortex, not – brooding. That's not really her, anymore. Just thinking. She imagines Ryan and Graham, settling in quietly, working around the absence in their lives, fumbling, together. Imagines Yaz talking with her nan, sorting through all the complicated things she's seen, trying her best to understand without giving away too much, and smiles despite herself. The universe is wonderful, but complicated. Sometimes there's no way to win. Sometimes the only thing to do is learn. Even when it hurts. Even when it doesn't sit right. She's learned that lesson the hard way, over the years.

“I'm not sure I could've done that,” a voice muses, and her shoulders tense where she's hunched over the console, and she doesn't move, and she doesn't turn around. Big brown eyes burn a hole in the back of her head. “Walked away.”

She can't look. She doesn't look.

“Not sure you could've done that, once,” the voice continues. “You broke so many rules. We broke so many, together.”

She feels hot breath on her neck. A phantom grip. A touch she hasn't felt in centuries.

“But isn't it better, Doctor,” the voice whispers in her ear, “when everybody lives?”

\---

She tries to sleep after that – she really does. The past is a foreign country, and it's encroaching on her every day, and if the only way to stave off its advance is to sleep, then so be it. But that gunshot echoes in her ears, and one war becomes another, becomes another, becomes another.

She wakes up alone and lonely, eyelids gritty, hearts pounding sluggishly. Seventeen minutes. Ish.

“Sorry, old girl,” she mutters in apology when the TARDIS groans in concern, raising a ginger hand to the base of the console, the alcove she's claimed in lieu of a bed. “I just can't do it. I can't do this.”

The past might be encroaching, but at least when she's awake she can outrun it.

\---

“The robot has a point, you know,” Rory says pragmatically, looming over poor Twirly with a critical frown. “You won't last long, like this.”

“He's right. Go to bed, raggedy man,” Amy says at his side, arms crossed, exasperated. “Before you get your little gang into a mess you can't get out of.”

The pointed jabs, she's getting a little tired of, she has to admit. Of course, she's just tired in general, lately. Everything's sort of – fuzzy, like she's moving through fog. It's not the most conducive environment for coming up with brilliant plans. She's doing her best, but –

She has a feeling today's won't be a winner.

“Besides,” Amy says, eyebrows raising pointedly in the gloom of the warehouse. “Everyone knows how you get when you're tired, and no one wants that.”

She spins on her heel, scowling, Twirly cradled in her arms. Leaving the Ponds behind, again, and she should be used to it by now.

“You can't just blow things up when they get complicated!” Rory shouts at her back.

As usual, he's right.

But she still does it, anyway.

\---

She hasn't slept in weeks, and a ghost is staring at her from behind Ryan's shoulder.

“It's never quite like the history books, is it,” Ryan offers up, misinterpreting her silence, her gaze. “I keep thinkin' I know what to expect, and then – ”

“You get hit on by His Majesty, the King?” Yaz raises her eyebrows innocently, a smile a second away from stealing across her face. The Doctor turns to the console to hide her own expression, so they can imagine something more convincing than what she's currently capable of conjuring.

“I'm gonna need us all never to mention that again, out of respect for my fragile emotional state,” Ryan says, dead-pan. “But, yeah, basically.”

She's landed them back in Sheffield, outside Yaz's estate. Where they'll all be safe from the perils of 17th century England – mostly. For better or for worse, people tend to be – well, _people_ , no matter what century you find them in. Witch trials, though, she thinks, scratching at the back of her head, fingers catching in her still-drying hair. Not the sort of thing she'd ever imagined getting wrapped up in, before. Though she can't deny that it's fairly on-brand.

“Soaking wet's a good look for you,” the ghost says, unbidden. “Don't think I haven't been watching.”

She's too cold to flush, too numb to be surprised, too tired to be horrified, but her hands are shaking all the same.

“That's the past for you,” she says mildly, reaching, grasping for the edges of something like satisfaction, something like joy. They've done something good. They've left behind something better. “Same time next Saturday?” she asks, steeling herself, gritting her chattering teeth into something more like a smile and turning back to face them. “Three hundred years from now, there's this museum on Mars – ”

She falters. Her eyes skirt over the impossible.

“Doc?” Graham asks, after a moment. They're all frowning at her.

She averts her gaze and continues. “Mummies! It's got – mummies. And it's on Mars. For reasons that are too complicated to explain, but trust me, it's really cool. Presumably. So I've heard.”

“I'm in,” Ryan says, adjusting his hat, still frowning faintly. “But – ”

“I'm in, too. D'you wanna come back for tea, before you take off, though?” Yaz moves towards the door, glancing over her shoulder. Eyes flicking briefly to empty space, following the Doctor's line of sight to what isn't there. “Biscuits and some warmth?”

 _Yes_ , she almost says automatically. But there are impossible eyes burning into her and the world has slowed to a fuzzy crawl and her core temperature has been flirting with the idea of hypothermia for hours, and she can't quite stomach the thought of burying it all under a smile over someone's kitchen table.

“Maybe next time,” she says instead, warmly. Grateful for the offer, every time. She rather likes the novelty of popping in and out of their lives, honestly; catching brief glimpses here and there, tolerable pieces of life in the slow path. It helps to keep her friends in context. And it helps to keep her in context with them. And also, she's never been one to turn down an offer of biscuits.

Except for right now, currently, but only because – well. There are some ghosts she can't bring herself to ignore.

Yaz frowns at that, suspicious. “But – ” She can't quite seem to think of what to say, though. “Are you sure? It's never any trouble. We like havin' you round, you know.”

They think she's worried about bothering them.

“It's true,” Graham pipes up, on the verge of following Ryan out the doors. “We wouldn't offer otherwise. You're welcome anytime, Doc. You certainly let us traipse around in your home often enough.”

“The TARDIS doesn't mind,” she says fondly, patting the console. Feeling a breath of warmth inside, despite the chill. Brief, because those eyes are still boring into her skull. “Neither do I. I'll come round next time. Promise.”

“Well, if you change your mind,” Yaz says, a hair uncertain, still. But she throws a wave and a smile behind her as they all file out, one after the other, into Saturday afternoon and the promise of next week.

They leave, and she's left alone.

“They're very nice, your friends,” the ghost says, trailing after her carelessly as she stumbles down underneath the console, hands and knees trembling. “You've been giving them a very sanitized tour of the universe. Do you think that'll keep them nice?”

She clambers into the alcove, warm and dusty and thick with time. The blanket's still there. The TARDIS dims the lights and blows a gust of hot air at her from a vent.

“Passive aggressive,” she mutters, drawing the blanket around her shoulders, scowling fondly.

“They'll get bored.” The ghost crouches down in front of her, halo of hair catching gold in the light dripping down through the grate. “Or suspicious. Or resentful.” The ghost leans in. “You hide from them, but you never have to hide from me. I can always see you.”

For a moment, she almost longs for the empty blankness that had once been her memory of Clara, longs for that violation, longs for that peace, wants it to smother her whole brain, pluck out every face with impunity. Remembrance pulls like a sea of sand, a sea of rags, and she'll be sucked under like this, drowned before she can reach the shore. This is no way to run. This is no way to live. If she could only sleep, she'd be able to settle them back into rest, these poor ghosts, let them be still again at the back of her head, leave them warm and never far from her, where they belong.

Hands that have never grasped this face, that will never grasp this face, cup her chin.

“Oh, sweetie,” her wife says, a spectre, a breath, a dream. Long and lost to her, just like all of them. “Haven't you realized what the problem is, yet?”

\---

In her dreams, the bottom of the pond is filled with skulls. Houdini's tricks fail her, and she gasps awake sputtering, no longer chilled, smothered and hot and sick under the weight of the blanket. She struggles free of it with effort, the world at a tilt, the shadows under the console thick and threatening.

She doesn't even notice the shape in front of her, at first.

“No woman is an island,” Grace says to her cryptically, wrapped in a shawl, looking for all intents and purposes like she belongs in the TARDIS, and the realization is dull and blunted and far-belated.

“Not really a woman,” she croaks in protest, breaking her own rule, spit thick at the back of her throat. She swallows painfully. “Not like you lot understand, anyway.”

“I'm a manifestation of your own subconscious, love.”

“Oh, now you tell me.” She presses further into the alcove, shifting uncomfortably. The blanket is too warm, but the air is too cold. Her pulse pounds dully in her ears, sluggish. The skin around her eyes is too tight, too dry. “If you're only really me, then why won't you leave when I ask you to?”

“You haven't asked.”

“The asking's been implicit,” she complains, hoarse. But the revelation sits sour behind her tongue. Would empty air be better than this? Full of shadows and dust and silence? The past is just as present there, really. The past is always present. Especially when she's by herself. “Oh,” she sighs, grinding her palms into her eyes, bringing her knees up to her chest. Darkness beckons, but she can still taste pond water at the back of her throat.

“Why can't you sleep, love?” The Grace in her head is perfect, and she aches for the woman Ryan and Graham lost. If she'd been a little faster, a little better, she thinks sometimes – but thoughts like that are dangerous. Dangerous and selfish.

“Nightmares,” she whispers.

“And what's at the heart of every nightmare?”

That's easy. “Fear.” A constant companion, travelling with her from that barn in the desert to every corner of the universe, every second of eternity.

She pictures Grace raising her eyebrows. “And? Isn't the most important thing about fear the fact that it makes you brave?” Her voice, so tangible it almost has a weight to it, softens. “When are you bravest, Doctor?”

Well, that's easy, too.

 _When I'm not alone_.

She sinks back, lifting her palms from her eyes, the world soft and spinning and muggy with heat.

“Look after them,” Grace implores, smiling kindly. “They'll look after you too, if you let them.”

\---

When she cracks open her eyelids again, those same kind eyes are staring down at her, and Ryan's face is crinkled in worry. He's still wearing the same hat as earlier.

“Lookin' rough, mate,” he says gently.

“Are you really there?” she croaks suspiciously, tapping him on the nose. The worried crinkle between his eyebrows deepens.

“Oh, that's reassuring,” he remarks, settling down into a more comfortable crouch, removing her hand from the vicinity of his face. “Found her!” he hollers up through the grate, glancing up briefly. “We're down here!”

She wrinkles her nose at the volume, shudders further back into the alcove. Above, she can hear the stomp and clang of the others, clambering down to come find them.

“Is it Saturday already?” she asks, groggy, head all – muddled. “Your hat hasn't changed. Do you all just wear the same outfit all the time? I thought that was only me.”

“It's the same Saturday,” he says. Concern wars with exasperation on his face, probably. “You never left, Doctor. Yaz went for a run after dinner and passed by the TARDIS. She couldn't find you.”

Ah. Of course. It figures she'd forgotten a step, somewhere along the way.

She yawns miserably, smothering it behind her hand.

“Sorry,” she rasps, and in her head she's bounded to her feet already, scrambled her way back up to the upper console with ease, is flipping all the switches that she'd meant to switch earlier. Her actual feet seem less enthusiastic about the whole idea. “You lot should go home, I'll just – I'll just jump ahead. Meant to before, I just – didn't.”

Yaz's colourful trainers join her line of vision.

“Did you just tell us to go home?” She sounds ever so slightly offended. “I'm going to ignore that. Doctor, what – ” Yaz crouches down next to Ryan, hair pulled back into braids behind her head, sweat drying along her forehead. “What are you doin' down here?”

Oh, right. Uh –

“Repairs?” she tries.

“You don't have any tools out,” Graham points out from behind them both, the bugger.

“And there's a – blanket.” Yaz frowns. “Wait, sorry, is this where you've been sleeping?”

Well, technically –

“Wouldn't say that, exactly,” she mutters, gaze drifting. “It's not strictly accurate.”

“Well, what is strictly accurate, then? Doctor,” Yaz says, shaking her head minutely, finally comfortable enough to be frustrated. “What's going on? You're being – weird. Weirder than usual.”

Good old PC Khan, she thinks fondly. No truth is safe. Which should scare her a bit, honestly, but mostly she's just impressed. She lifts her head to meet Yaz's gaze and lets the bags under her eyes do the talking.

Yaz softens.

“All that rubbish about not needing to sleep was a lie, wasn't it,” she says. “I knew it.” Her gaze narrows. “Have you had a proper rest once in the entire time we've known you?”

The Doctor wrinkles her nose, sheepish.

“Well – ” she starts, figuring the lie will unfold itself once she gets it rolling, but the words never get the chance to leave her mouth, cowed by Yaz's glare.

“Why didn't you say anything?” Ryan asks. “You really are daft sometimes, you know.”

“Oi,” she protests hoarsely. “I'm older than organized religion. The span of my collective knowledge would fill a supercomputer thirteen times over.”

“And so humble, too,” Ryan says, manoeuvring himself awkwardly into the alcove. “Go on, shove over, Oh Daft One.”

“What – ”

“You have broadband in here, right Doctor?” He's already pulling out his phone. “There's a football game on tonight.”

“I'll go make the tea,” Graham says, resigned. He turns reluctantly. “Keep track of the score for me, will you? And we're watching Call the Midwife after!”

“Hold on, let me text Mum,” Yaz says, wedging herself in beside Ryan, claiming a corner of the blanket. She peers over his shoulder. “Who's playing tonight?”

 _What_ –

“Sorry,” the Doctor interjects, “but what are you all doing?”

Ryan and Yaz blink at her innocently.

“You said we could come round anytime,” Ryan says. “You said you didn't mind.”

“I – did say that.”

“So, this is us. Comin' round.”

She opens her mouth. Closes it. “Under the console.”

“Yeah.” He raises his eyebrows. “That's where you are. D'you wanna be somewhere else?”

She thinks about it. “No.”

“Right, then.”

She pulls her face into a frown, confused, but he's already launched into a play-by-play, a running commentary of highs and lows, eyes glued to the screen of his phone, Yaz only half paying attention. She watches the two of them watch, perplexed, until Graham finally returns, four cups of tea precariously in hand, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders like an impromptu shawl.

“The TARDIS hit me in the head with another blanket,” he says, mystified, handing her a cup of tea carefully. “It just – it just shot out of the wall.”

“Yeah, there's been a lot of that lately.”

“Well,” he says, lowering himself to the ground with a wince. “A bit of warning would be nice, next time. I almost dropped everything. Who's winning?”

She sips at her tea – seven sugars, just how she likes it – still confused. They watch the game on Ryan's phone, and she pretends not to know how football works, listens to a convoluted three-part explanation with fondness, and then tries to explain in turn how Venusian chess-cricket is played. She promises to take them all to see a match over biscuits, and falls asleep against the wall of the alcove in the middle of Call the Midwife.

She only jolts awake once, hours later, black smoke trailing spectral through the air, the caw of a raven sharp in her ears, but the light is soft and dim and the air is full of the sound of breathing, and she's very far from alone. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Ryan and Yaz, slumped together, phone abandoned in Ryan's lap. One of them is snoring quietly, but she doesn't look to see who, because it's almost funnier not to know.

The rustle of paper turns her head, and she finds Graham sitting across from them, blanketed legs extended, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. Romance novel in hand, the cover lurid and colourful. He glances up at her.

“I like a happy ending,” is all he says, smiling, a little bit sad.

“Me too,” she replies.

“Feeling better?”

She takes stock. The world is a little less muddled. A little less – jammy. All the people at the edge of her vision are really there.

“Yeah,” she says, even though it still feels a bit like her throat's been scraped raw. “Bit confused, though.”

“That's nothing new round here, Doc.”

“Suppose that's true.” She waits for a moment, enjoying the living silence. Feeling guilty about enjoying it. Graham licks the edge of his finger and turns a page, delicately.

“I think you're worried we're bein' inconvenienced, somehow,” he says quietly, without looking up from his book. “But you're quite wrong.”

“Am I?” she asks, shifting.

“'Course you are. People don't tend to do things they don't feel like doing, in case you haven't noticed. It's no trouble.” He looks up, uncharacteristically solemn. “There's no shame in being lonely, Doc.”

She smiles ruefully. “I think I used to be better at it.”

“So did I.” He gazes at her carefully. “Are you really older than organized religion?”

“I'm older than you can imagine.”

“Well, then,” he says, closing his book with a quiet rustle. “You probably need more sleep than all of us put together. That's what dreaming's for, innit? Sorting through your memories? Making sense of all what's happened to you?”

“Something like that,” she says.

“Best get to it, then.” He smiles. “Lots to see, still, according to you. Better with the past behind you than in front, if you ask me. I think you might half have taught me that, actually.”

“I'm not always the best at taking my own advice,” she admits quietly. “If I take it from you, though, that's different.”

“Quite right, too. Go on, Doc. Even a restless sleep is better than none. We'll still be here in the morning.”

“You will be, won't you?” she says, settling back against the wall, eyes slipping closed. Darkness beckons, but it's only natural and right. There are no ghosts, here. Only the past behind her eyes, where it belongs.

“Thanks, fam,” she mutters. “'Night, Graham.”

She hears him settle in turn, shifting against the grate. Imagines him smiling, eyes crinkling, kind.

“Goodnight,” he says, fond. The TARDIS creaks in approval.

 _A beach a cradle a barn in the desert_ sits behind her eyes. For once, she dreams of home, and it doesn't hurt a bit.

 

**Author's Note:**

> it was my birthday this week, so I wrote something completely self-indulgent as a present. 
> 
> is this very tidy? nope. does it make sense? hmm debatable. do I care? absolutely not. am I very tired and looking to project? YES.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed this quick, introspective mess, thank you very much for reading, and I'd very dearly enjoy knowing what you thought!
> 
> \- W


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